"There was no effort from the Pentagon or the Defense Department leadership at any time to deliberately suppress or withhold information about chemical munition," Kirby said during the press briefing on Thursday.
"As far back as 2006 we very openly in congressional testimony acknowledged finds of hundreds of rounds of these chemical munitions inside Iraq," Kirby said. He added that in that same testimony they made it clear that there would be more chemical weapons.
"There were thousands more that were found," the spokesperson stressed. "And each time they were found and cataloged and collected, we made those disclosures. Now since 2009 it's up to the government of Iraq to do that, and they have," Kirby said.
According to Kirby, thousands and thousands of these munitions were found and destroyed and removed. "So there was never any non-disclosure of what we've been finding," he concluded.
- The New York Times reported on Tuesday that from 2004 to 2011, the US military and Iraqi troops found around 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs in Iraq, created during the rule of former president Saddam Hussein in collaboration with the West.
Earlier this week, the spokesperson for the US Defense Department told RIA Novosti that the United States kept secret the information about the chemical weapons discoveries in Iraq in order to secure the findings from being obtained by hostile forces before their elimination.
(RIA Novosti)
17/10/14
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Comment by the Information and Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia on the discovery of chemical weapons in Iraq (MFA Russia)....
ReplyDeleteAn article in The New York Times drew our attention. Citing official sources and until recently classified documents of the US Department of Defence, the article talks about the discovery and secret destruction by the occupying coalition forces in Iraq in 2004-2011 of up to 5,000 different chemical munitions produced during the Iran-Iraq conflict, including those produced using technology provided by Western countries.
This information raises a number of important questions in relation to existing international legal norms. Having found chemical weapons, the United States, in accordance with its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention, should have declared them to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and then destroy them under the OPCW direct control, which was not done for reasons that are now obvious.
Such legal voluntarism, nihilism and selectivity in favour of its own geopolitical interests have become a habit for Washington, a fact that is corroborated, following the well-known events in Iraq and Libya, by the policy pursued by the US administration with regard to Syria, including in relation to the elimination of its chemical warfare potential. Ignoring existing issues regarding the safe destruction of chemical weapons and their components in Iraq and Libya and looking away from the repeated use of toxic chemicals as chemical warfare agents in Iraq and Syria by the Islamic State rebels and other Islamist groups, Washington and its allies continue a massive campaign accusing the Syrian authorities of allegedly hiding part of its military chemical programme.
Furthermore, even before the completion of an investigation by a special OPCW mission on the military use of chlorinated compounds, a verdict of guilt of the al-Assad government was categorically rendered. Meanwhile, similar events in Khan al-Assal and East Huta in 2013, caused by provocations of the Syrian opposition, tell a different tale, and the international programme for chemical demilitarisation of Syria is nearing completion.
Once again, we call upon the United States to consider the harmful and irresponsible nature of such approaches. Double standards are unacceptable, particularly in the Middle East, which seems to have become a testing ground for terrorists honing their skills in the synthesis, production and use of chemical warfare agents.
http://mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/0/0825BF51E016736A44257D78005F6470
21/10/14